Effect on Families

Thomas Leiper Kane, 1822-1883, was a lawyer, soldier, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and defender of the Mormons. In 1846, when he read of the forced exodus of the Mormon people from Nauvoo, Illinois, Thomas L. Kane sought help for them from the U.S. government and journeyed to the Mormon settlements to offer his assistance to Brigham Young. He became Brigham Young’s closest non-Mormon friend. Thomas L. Kane’s communication skills, integrity, and compassion for the Mormon people were effective tools in defending the Latter-day Saints throughout his lifetime.

Kane married his second cousin, Elizabeth Dennistoun Wood, 1836-1909, on 21 April, 1853. Notwithstanding her youth, Elizabeth was a woman of outstanding intellectual abilities and compassion. She was a photographer, an author, and a doctor.

In April 1861, Thomas L. Kane was the first Pennsylvanian to enlist for service in the Civil War. He was commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln to organize a volunteer regiment for the Union Army. This rifle regiment was known as the “Bucktails”. He was first commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel and was later promoted to the rank of General.

In the Thomas L. and Elizabeth W. Kane Collection, there are approximately 800 letters between Elizabeth and Thomas penned during the Civil War period. A select few of them are here exhibited.

Don Carlos Salisbury was the son of Katharine Smith Salisbury, the younger sister of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Don Carlos was born in 1841 in a small village near Carthage, Illinois. As the main body of the Latter-day Saints left Nauvoo, Don Carlos remained in Illinois with his family.

At the age of nineteen, Don Carlos and his older brother Alvin volunteered to fight for the Union shortly after the outbreak of hostilities. While Alvin soon returned home due to illness, Don Carlos served in the 16th and 60th Regiments Illinois Volunteer Infantry for over three years, and saw combat in Missouri, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia before being discharged in 1864.

He felt the particularly bitter fighting in Missouri was divine retribution for the expulsion of the Mormons and his family. Wounded in action, Don Carlos carried the scars of the Civil War with him throughout his life. He died on 6 April, 1919 at the age of 77.

Gavin Drummond Hunt married Catherine Amelia Burgess in the early 1830s and had five children: George Washington Hunt, Mary D. Hunt, Philemon Burgess Hunt, Gavin Drummond Hunt Jr., and Albert G. Hunt. Shortly after their last child was born, Mrs. Hunt passed away.

With five children to look after, Mr. Hunt remarried Letitia Dudley. The family lived in Lexington, Kentucky, a border state during the war that did not secede, despite it being a slave state. This led to divisions in the state and even among family members, as was the case with the Hunt family.

Before the War commenced, Mary had moved to New Jersey and married Dr. Lewis Craig. Her father and brothers sent her numerous letters during the Civil War chronicling the social and political climate during the war, major battles, and the impact of the war on her family.